dami can't (leavethenest) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-02-10 06:55:00 |
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Entry tags: | damian wayne, emma woodhouse |
Who: Gabe and Jim
When: Recently
Where: Jimmy's Diner
What: Meeting! Jim trying to decide if Gabe is dead
Warnings: None
It was the same white, filtered light of every morning, rain through rice-paper. The man in the bed flinched, his eyelids squeezed in anticipation of the red-flare of pain that came with awareness, that came with awake. The sheets rustled with his movement, papery and stiff and when he turned his head, blurred eyes dimming in on the IV stand and the sluggish strand of liquid drip-drip-dripping into plastic tubing, awareness was resignation. He lay there for an hour, still and quiet and only blinking and the light strobed across the wall, dappled by the blinds and the man in the bed watched the striations with the ambivalent interest of one whose world has narrowed down to a room. The sheets arched in the bed but only one side, a swollen parody of its mirror image. The smooth landscape, all sheets and waffle-cotton blanket, was snow across blackened land, across metal twists and bolts, a cage for a leg that had until recently, been useful, alike to any other.
“Mr Reed.” The voice was soft but it was matter-of-fact. It was clear. Determined. The man rolled his head on his neck, blinked at her. She was pastel scrubs and a clipboard and a frown that was trying not to be a frown. “Mr Reed, Doctor says you’re alright to walk on it now. We’ll try little bursts, just to the restroom and back first,” Pastel Scrubs had a worn, rubbed look to her. Night-shift, Gabe decided. Long night, too many patients. They had that clean, scrubbed look in the beginning, at the end they were as rumpled as the patients.
“How many days have I been here?” Pastel scrubs was interrupted; thrown off her treatment plan, she frowned, paused, her eyes moved to the clipboard.
“Forty-six, Mr Reed!” Her voice slimmed down to a higher, sharper note, distress, not anger. She did not know what to do. He did not know what to do, the sheets were tucked sharply, like folded wings held close, he fought to unfurl himself, the awkward, strange heaviness of the leg in the brace, and the thick struggle of his breath in his chest, audible in his ears. He thrust at the blankets, groped for the slick metal of the bed-rail - “Mr Reed, you don’t have to rush, we have time,” No, thought Gabe, and it was a fast, rushing kind of thought, empty of sound, empty of rationale, empty of anything save the ticking of his own heartbeat, of his pulse rushing like sea in his ears. No, we don’t have time.
Her shoes squeaked as she whirled, pastel scrubs and clipboard, presumably to get help - the nurses’ station, it was thirty feet away but on a Tuesday - was it Tuesday? - the orderlies circulated, pushed willing patients toward the services available. Gabe was grateful, momentarily, for her absence, for the hail of noise and movement. It gave him a minute - just one - for the unsteadiness of his feet, for heaving himself upward in a belabored fumbling when he was not certain God help me that he would make it. By the time the orderlies came, Pastel Scrubs talking rapidly and not looking at him once - embarrassed - the man was half-way to dressed and leaning heavily on a gray plastic cane that had been leaning in a corner and he did not argue but he lumbered past them, pushing with elbow and with the cane when the elbow did not do. They thrust forms at him, flapping white paper and they made him sign, a labored scribble that made him wonder how much of the drugs he had in his system, and they pushed a typed script in his hand for him to fill. Gabe waited until he was clear of the sliding glass doors, of the stench of disinfectant and defeat. He balled it and threw it in a vacant trash-can and then he was suddenly and heavily sick, mercifully briefly and was recovered by the time the cab came.
The diner was not familiar but it looked like it should be. It had the patina of grease and of age, the scuffing that came from heavy traffic and the faded suggestion of paint on the walls that might once have been a color but was absorbed into the general murk of the place. The man stood on the sidewalk and he admired the door-frame, the plastic sign saying ‘we’re open’ with no hint of opening hours or when they would be closed with the same bland appreciation of goers at art-galleries for large paintings. He pushed in and the bell tingled and he stood in the entrance and looked around once more, like it was new and it was old and as though there were meaning to it that there was not. He was tall - very, he made the place look small by his being there and he wore a long black overcoat, loose, over jeans and a dark colored sweater. He walked oddly, listing to one side and reliant heavily upon a cane and when he moved, the coat moved and there was a glint of metal, from the knee down. For a moment then, he stood and he waited - to be seated or to smile in passing at the boy and his mother who slid out of a neighboring booth, it couldn’t be sure, until he began to sway, slightly and he leaned harder toward the cane and his face - he was not dark but swarthy enough - went the grayish yellow of pallor and he half-fell, half-sat into the just-vacated and not-clean booth with a noise that sounded like stifled pain.
Jim had seen a lot of weird shit in his diner. Once there was this punk, an old punk with pink hair that covered up the white and disgusting, fading tattoos that looked like week old bruises. This guy probably followed the Ramones around like a puppy dog and wished he had a British accent to fit in with his Sex Pistol gods. This punk would come in around the same time every night smelling like unwashed laundry and bad booze, pulling his bag of bones frame onto the barstool then leaned on the counter waiting for food. It didn’t matter what Jim brought him. Eggs. Pancakes. One of Lily’s poorly baked (but well decorated) cupcakes. The old punk would eat it, humming to himself as he pushed it in his face and just sat there for a good hour after. No coffee. No chit chat. Just sat there. Jim figured he was some kind of burnout or needed to be in a quiet, normal setting, so he didn’t try to fuck with the guy. Never even tried to kick him out. Just pushed food in front of him and made eyes at the customers so they knew not to sit too close.
So, while most people were born with the ability to sense when someone else was wrong in the weird sense of the word, Jim was kind of comfortable with it. He noticed the tall man as a couple bored customers did as well in some unifying sense that something was off. He didn’t look high, not in the rich cokehead sense that men his age tended to be. He didn’t look like a drunk either. Not with that cane and the dazed, weak look. That set off a completely different alarm in Jim’s head. He went from how can I politely deal with this weirdo to holy shit is today the day a guy drops dead in my diner. It wouldn’t be the first time he had wondered such a thing, but thus was the life of living in the service industry.
Wearing his best grump face, a pair of worn jeans, a stained shirt with Jimmy’s written across it and a stained white apron that looked like if it was squeezed out into a Wonka machine it could make a pack of jelly beans, he stopped and pulled out an overused rag to clean off the table before lightly sliding a menu across the semi-wet surface. “I’m going to get you some water.” Which was code for he was going to personally keep an eye on Gabe. “Are you a tea or coffee kind of guy?”
He had his eyes half-closed by the time footsteps drew closer; Gabe did not have to open them - male, by the heaviness of the tread and by the confidence of it, doubtless the owner or someone who assumed they knew enough to be either helpful or in charge. He did not wince and he did not frown, his face was the careful absence of the usual indicators and expressions America used to convey their every feeling - it was also the color of spoiled milk, but Gabe could not control that. One breath came, and then the next and he discovered that it no longer felt quite like the pain in his leg had a steel vice squeezing around his lungs with each pulse-beat. The breaths grew longer, steadier, and the menu sat on the slick cleanliness of the table, and crumbs had caught themselves in the tangle of his coat from their trajectory off the table.
Gabe was a particular kind of man, one overly-fond of order and of ritual in its small place when he was permitted the installation of such things. He knew well the risk of habits and of routines, had held the gun to his shoulder and taken the shot with the merciless abuse of routines his targets had clung to - but there were small things, like the way he - Gabe - took his tea or coffee when he was not someone else who took them differently, that rooted his mind, kept him sane in the downtime between assignments. “Coffee,” he said and it was an effort but he opened his eyes and he modulated his voice and he smiled. It was small and it was a thinner thing than pleasure might make it, but it was real - as real as any of those others who sat in the booths. He picked up the menu in his right hand and it didn’t shake although it looked like it might have, and he drew his coat a little more closely over the metallic glint and his leg in the aisle with his left.
“I think I’ll have that,” the man pointed, rather than read off, and he said it with a pleasant ease that did not go with the curdled look to his face, nor the whitish set to his mouth, and it could be thought he was simply lazy enough to make Jim read from his own menu. “Please.”
Jimmy gave Gabe one of those looks a teacher might when their student was about to yak in his own desk. He frowned, concern briefly crossing his otherwise grumpy, old man features. Jim wasn’t a doctor and he sure as hell couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong with this guy except for maybe someone hit him with a bus or drained out half his blood. He imagined this guy walking out of some action movie, stumbling into Jimmy’s diner with a trail of trouble only minutes away. I have to stop watching FX late at night. He thought about blaming his extreme worst case scenario on Damian’s influence and comic book lifestyle, but Jim always expected the terrible.
He left to get water and some fresh coffee (while putting an order in for that which was incidentally the breakfast special), but he wasn’t gone for very long. In his hand were two mugs, one for him and one for Gabe, and a tall water glass with just enough ice to make it refreshing. Jim didn’t ask if he could sit down, this was his damned diner damn it, and instead just slid across the table from Gabe. “You need a doctor, buddy?” He asked bluntly, but not unkindly. There was something distinctly fatherly about Jim that even a stranger could feel it.
It was a scarce minute or three when the owner - had to be the owner, he had a self-possession that came with owning the place rather than merely working there - walked away and came back but it was time enough (and necessary time) to regulate breathing slowly and deliberately to a normal rate, to forcibly relax his mind. This gave Gabe some outward sign of peace, of the usual state of a man who comes into a diner not because he needs somewhere to stop or he will fall over, but someone looking for a plate of grease and coffee on the side. That he was no longer walking on his leg (and thus the fiery, explicit shock of placing weight each second stride had ceased) allowed some color to bloom back into his face. He was a shade or two paler than usual, but by the time Jim returned with coffee - which Gabe picked up, ignoring the water as the default choice of a man who looked ill and very deliberately picking the path of one who was not - he had shuffled together a look that was ordinary, if a little pallid.
“Thanks,” he said, and he tilted the cup toward the diner-owner, before taking a sip. It was viscous and bitter but pleasantly so; it had been two months since he had last had coffee and then it had been granular, gritty on the tongue and teeth but a necessary stimulant. This was enjoyable, drunk for pleasure as much as necessity. He had half-expected the man to sit, the questions to be asked; he was unlikely to avoid them. Gabe gave a smile that was as much dimples as it was a perfunctory thing most would pay attention to its existence rather than its reach. “No, I’m good. Slid a little, jarred myself, that’s all.” He didn’t explain why or how and he didn’t explain why ‘jarring himself’ would cause him to look close to death. “Nice place you’ve got here.” It slid easily on into the next. Topic closed.
Jim sat back in the booth, pulling the coffee mug up to his lips with a small raise of his brow like he didn’t believe the guy, but respected another man’s need for a little pride. It was very old school, something his dad and grandfather taught him from an early age, but in this ancient diner it seemed appropriate. Still, he wasn’t moving from the booth any time soon. If Toby was here he could probably bully this guy with smart guy talk until he went back to the hospital or ER room or mob doctor. Jim knew he’d have to wait this one out. He mumbled something along the lines of “Not paying the hospital bill” and dropped it. For now.
“It’s a dump, but we get by.” Jim said proudly. Damian found it a little pathetic, but most of Jim’s life was wrapped up in this bar. “Two seats down from us?” He thumbed back down the row of booths. “That’s where I met my daughter’s mom. That seat right there at the counter? That’s where my grandfather sat when he told us to go screw ourselves and retired to Florida. We almost had three people die here, all from choking there, there and there.” Jim pointed them out like all three of them only happened a couple hours ago. “But, no one’s died here yet. That’s one thing we got over most of the damned diners in Vegas.”
Gabe grinned then, big and bold like he was the kind of man to find the owner’s pride and his humor funny. It was a different kind of smile, one that pulled warmth from the man’s brown eyes and it was directed toward the owner, strong enough to dissolve a memory of his entry into the place. “Sounds like it’s got a lot of history,” he said and the coffee had already begun to work, whether it was the caffeine or the psychosomatic effect of it, Gabe didn’t care. It was working on the muzzy, flannel-like feeling of his own head and it was warm and it didn’t come in an IV-drip. It made him cheerful, quietly so and it added a note of something that wasn’t play-acting at all. Gabe was good at it, good enough that genuine looked a whole lot like everything else.
“People usually wind up dead at diners in Vegas?” his voice was mild, affable with the note of passing curiosity that can be sated or discarded without the person giving much care either way. Gabe had not visited diners in Vegas prior; those frequented in Virginia had been scarce but clean, and busy and rarely a crime-scene. The man was a father, that was as like to make him easily worried as Gabe’s own appearance; that was reassuring. It meant that he could conceivably assuage that worry without much effort, just presenting logical reason for it to cease. Fathers - Gabe well knew - were prone to the bleed-over of concern. “So it’s your place?”
“People come to diners cause it feels familiar, right? You know the food and people aren’t afraid to show up in their sweatpants or hungover. It’s a good place to die. Even if it was caused by one of the heartattack bacon burgers.” Jim seemed like the kind of guy who saw more sweatpants every day than suits. He preferred it that way, which wouldn’t surprise anyone. His mood lightened a little as he saw a tiny bit of color return to Gabe’s face and he visibly relaxed. He had dealt with a lot worse. A lot less friendly.
“Yup. Passed down to me like fry cooking is in my blood. Don’t think my daughter is going to take it once I’m ready to retire, but that’s fine. She’s too smart for flipping pancakes all day.” Jim shrugged easily, sipping his coffee and looking around the place like it was home. And, it kind of was. He felt more like himself here than back at the apartment. Even if Lily was around. “You got any family?” Jim asked casually, part of him wondering if this guy was a drifter, part of him just trying to make polite conversation until he could get him eating.
“How old’s the daughter?” Gabe’s smile and his nod were the kind of understanding that conveyed knowing, both daughters and those too smart for pancake-flipping. It implied family without Gabe saying anything at all about it and it was a habit as much as it was a talent. He picked up the menu and he tilted it - holding it away from him a little, like his eyesight wasn’t good enough up close - and he looked at the list of dishes in neat type. They looked familiar, like any other diner in America - maybe the world - and yet a diner could be one that bathed the meals in grease or left them looking like you were sat down to eat in a gastropub in Europe.
“Hell of a burger,” he said, to both the menu and the heart-attack, and he looked at Jim calmly as if he’d never stumbled into the diner at all. It was a neat trick, one learned from years of practice, implying that if there had been a problem, it had never been at all and Gabe was good at it. “Can’t say I’d want to die of one or in sweatpants but it seems like you’ve got yourself a theory.” A smile.
Jim took a moment, deciding that as long as this guy was talking like a regular human being and not giving antsy looks to the exits, he didn’t give a damn if this guy didn’t want to talk about himself. Whatever threat of danger or weirdness that this could have easily turned into seemed far-fetched at this point. That was good enough for him. And, he didn’t mind having an excuse to talk about his daughter. “Lily’s nine. Real big on science and not big on dating boys yet, so my blood pressure still has a couple years before hitting the roof. Biggest fear is that she’ll turn into a vegetarian and try to turn this place into a hippy joint.” Jim laughed like someone who didn’t laugh much and when he did it was at his own jokes. “Over my dead body, I told her.”
He looked down at his coffee, finished it with two measured swigs and nodded. “You seem alright.” Jim’s best stamp of approval. And, something about the way he said it suggested that on a human to human level, he just wanted to make sure Gabe was alright. “That smell of grease making you hungry yet?”
Gabe raised his eyebrows a fraction and he looked toward the kitchen and the vague scent of frying bacon, of the clattering of plates and pans and the no doubt vile language of whoever was cooking; there had been one assignment when Gabe had been the one closeted into a kitchen the size of a wardrobe, cooking until the walls dripped condensation. The smell of cooked meat, of eggs and of the coffee itself stirred salivary glands that hadn’t had much reason to stir themselves to action in a month or two. “I could eat,” he agreed and he finished his own coffee, empty cup set down gently enough to make no sound at all.
“She sounds like quite a kid,” he hadn’t given overmuch thought to his girl dating and Gabe didn’t think of it now - this was connecting rather than digging into his own parental fears and his own concern was a blink of something to tuck away for later. It came out warm though, the kind of laugh in the back of it that said he knew parental woes, and he blinked at Jim as if he’d never been not all right in the first place. “Me, I’m fine. Could do with the number of a good motel though.”
Jim gradually shifted back to the role of diner owner, glancing at Gabe’s empty cup and then back towards the kitchen where he knew his food was close to being ready or sitting in the window getting cold. “Good.” He said, sliding out of the booth and getting back on his feet like someone who spent a lot of time standing and moving around even if he didn’t like it all that much. “I’ll get your food and refill your coffee.” Jim gave a nod and the pulled out a notepad to write down the address of a little motel down the street. “Nothing fancy, but it’s clean and quiet. That’s all you could ask for in a motel.” He tore the paper off and placed it on the table. Nothing but the name and number for the place written in clear, blocky letterings of someone who worked in the food industry too long.
“Name’s Jim in case you haven’t guessed. Good to meet you.” Jim put his hand out for Gabe for a handshake. Another very old school sort of sentiment. In fact it was a little small town, but out here on the edges of the Vegas rush, all the good people acted like they didn’t have a string of casinos and tourists in their backyard.
Gabe took it. He had a solid handshake, firm and his hand was very large. He was the kind of man people compared to bears, in height and breadth but there was a politeness to the handshake, something that kept it from being too strong, that moderated him. “Gabe.” He didn’t give his last name and he didn’t give the whole of his first name; he liked the man, in his diner on the side of a town full of strangers who treated it as though he were used to regulars and he liked the coffee as well. “Good to meet you too,” he said, as if there were very little doubt to it but that it was said, anyway.
He looked at the piece of paper and he had the name of it, and the number memorized but he picked it up off the table and folded it into careful thirds, anyway. He opened his wallet - plain, nothing fancy, nothing too beat and there was not much of ID in there that was obvious - and he put it away as if it needed keeping. “Thanks.” It was not a terrible neighborhood and there were many of those, he imagined, in Vegas. It would do, to apartment-hunt and to get himself set up and it would give him a telephone line that he could call out on, in the vain hope she wouldn’t be so mad he’d not been there for Friday nights well past his ‘business trip’s end date. He was hungry now, a low down and deep kind of hunger that surprised him and the thought of the food and the way this place was familiar without being familiar, was enjoyable.
“Nice to meet you, Jim.”
“You too, Gabe.” Jim didn’t smile, but there was a friendliness in his tone or at the very least, it was somewhat welcoming. Not like when someone at WalMart assaulted you with a greeting at the door, but more like a neighbor who invited the street over for beers and burgers. For all the processed food his place served, Jim liked people being themselves. Hell, waitresses got fired or saw their hours cut for fake cheeriness. Jim didn’t have time for that kind of bullshit.
When he turned, Jim looked like he was right back on the clock. Giving nods to customers as he checked on their coffee and drinks. Going through tickets with the back kitchen before taking over himself when one of his waitresses came back from break. Making sure Gabe got his food and coffee in a timely manner. And, then flipping pancakes like he didn’t plan on doing anything else for a long time.